Forget everything that you've ever learned about mentoring,
especially the idea of hitching your wagon to a rising
star.

Ann Otero seems like an unlikely mentor - at least by the rules
most companies apply. The 12-year Intel veteran is neither a star
engineer nor a fast-track sales executive. She's a senior
administrative assistant.

But Otero has rare gifts that Intel prizes. Among the 5,500
employees at the company's sprawling New Mexico plant, Otero is a
master at tapping into the informal people networks that make the
company tick. Need to know who to call in human resources about a
difficult employee? Wondering how to decode the company's internal
teams? Otero knows who to call and how to read the Intel culture.
Her ability to navigate Intel is so refined that she's currently
teaching her skills to an Intel manager who happens to outrank her.
That's the Intel way of mentoring - and it has almost nothing in
common with traditional, corporate mentoring programs. Intel's way
is more democratic, more systematic, and faster paced. Most
important, it has nothing to do with individual career
advancement.

Started in 1997 at one of Intel's largest chip-making facilities in
New Mexico, the company's mentoring movement shows that an
old-fashioned idea can be updated to work perfectly - even in an
industry that changes with stunning speed. Traditional mentoring
tethered an up-and-comer to an old hand for years of
personal-development and career advice. It was an approach that
seemed best suited for slow-moving industries operating in more
stable times. Intel's version matches people not by job title or by
years of service but by specific skills that are in demand.